SHARE! JOIN! SUPPORT! In a time where the ancestral sites, traditional communities, and historical heritage of the SWANA region (aka. Middle East & N. Africa) is being actively attacked and desecrated, support me in recovering ancestral & plantcestral wisdom towards the affirmation of LIFE in our lands and communities.

Updates from my SWANA ancestral healing journeys, August 2016.

My big news and my FUN offerings to support fundraising to make this important journey possible. Please SHARE and please JOIN US!

Below, you will find details about 3 DONATION BASED ONLINE OFFERINGS this Spring to support my Embodied Research trip to the SWANA* (aka. Middle East & N. Africa) region to invest in #plantcestral and #ancestral re-membrance work which I have been cultivating for the past decade and sharing with you all through River Rose and the نجمع جذورنا -reGather our Ancestors project this past couple of years.

Support me to fulfill my role and commitment to my communities in a time where restorative and healing practice is so greatly needed!This work reconnects us to the resilient, life-affirming wisdom and ancestral practices which have the power to restore, protect, and maintain the integrity of life and an order of justice in our region. The SWANA lands are increasingly under attack and our ancient traditions, sacred sites, and our indigenous ethnic communities are being especially targeted right now and need urgent attention. Please help me do my humble yet significant part in recovering, preserving, and uplifting these important cultural legacies of wisdom, especially in light of this critical time.

Through my research will be engaging and re-membering knowledge on SWANA:

1) Ethnobotany (the traditional knowledge and customs of a people concerning plants and their medical, sacred, folkloric, and other uses)

I need to raise $9,999 to make this possible. (UPDATE: I managed to get the first $5,555 together in the spring, and the fundraiser is still open for more contributions!)

*SWANA means South West Asia and North Africa, a less colonial way to refer to the region usually called the Middle East and North Africa.

THE OFFERINGS:

1) AVAILABLE NOW! * "Love is in the Homeland: SWANA Plantcestors for Healing and Re-Membrance", a 20 page digital book featuring medicinal profiles, remedies, and recipes of 5 accessible and powerful SWANA plantcestors, as well as tips and reflections on how to do ancestral re-claimation and re-membrance work. It is full of photos and practical and spiritual info for supporting our health of body and soul in an every day way, all compiled and written by me and with a special SWANA flavor.

TO ORDER THIS BOOK: Send your donation to paypal (International participants can pay here instead) and then email river.rose.layla@gmail.com with the following information:1) Your name2) Specify if you would like an online or printed copy3) Your address (if you want a printed copy)

SUGGESTED DONATION:$22-$222, online version$44-$444, printed version

2) AVAILABLE NOW!* Love is in the Homeland: SWANA traditions of Coffee Cup Divination. In this 1.5 hour online class, my Egyptian sister, Emanne Desouky and my Turkish sister, Emel Orhun join me to teach about the lovely plantcestor, coffee, share the ritual of preparation that our own families and traditions use, and then do a mini reading together where we teach some of the primary symbols and meanings in the cups per the tradition of our own family's and knowledge from the region, and offer tips and wisdom about how to read the cups and honor what it is telling you. It is a fun and informative class that will empower you to start preparing and interpreting the wisdom and symbols in your own coffee cup and path in general. There is also a recording of a q&a session that was live by me and Emel, and a comment/question board that is open to all registered participants for engagement and reflections indefinitely!

~ This class is open to ALL people, regardless of ancestry and location. ~

3) AVAILABLE NOW!* Love is in the Homeland: Food is Medicine: Traditional Lebanese Recipes with common Medicinal "Weeds"This 1 hr 20 minute long class features more SWANA medicine, including a special culinary practice with my very own family! It starts with a walk through my Maternal Teta's (grandmother's) garden to learn about her medicinal herbs, including many that commonly grow in North America and the SWANA region alike, and then a step-by-step recipe preparation with my grandma herself using very medicinal extremely common medicinal herbs that you can use for nutritious simple meal for your own family at home! Some other traditional Lebanese recipes with these common "weeds" and others will also be stated throughout the class teachings, as well as a comment/q&a board that is available for discussion for all registered participants indefinitely! One thing I LOVE about this class is that it offers ideas about how to work with common "invasive weeds" that we pull from our gardens all the time in a way that honors their medicine, blesses our tummies, and does the service of removing them so that more space can be claimed by our native plants that are so important to our local ecologies and ecosystems! It also offers the insight into a very uncommon extremely traditional recipe made by my grandma in her Southern Lebanese village throughout her childhood.

~ This class is open to ALL people, regardless of ancestry and location. ~

---------------------------SOME OTHER WAYS TO SUPPORT me in fulfilling my call to my ancestral lands this Spring...* Participate in the special offerings I am making this season (listed above) or simply donate to my funds at Paypal.* SHARE MY OFFERINGS & NEWS! This would be a GREAT help to get the word out about my project and my fundraiser and to acquire more support and connect to more of my kin in this world. I would love for as many people as possible to attend my online offerings and experience my "Love is in the Homeland" book this season!* Send me any info regarding grants, scholarships, private sponsors, or other funding sources that you think would align with my work. Some areas might be cultural preservation, traditional arts, traditional healing, or something else. Or private sponsors you know perhaps who are invested or interested in this topic. SHARE this work with any of these sources please, or people who you think are invested in this work and have funds to allocate towards it!* Put me in touch with any ally you know in the SWANA region who you think may be able to host me or help me find a place to stay, help me navigate my trip in their country, take me on a visit somewhere special, has interest in herbs, sacred sites or traditional culture, knows their village or land really well, is an elder who practices their traditional culture or knows a lot about it, historians, mystics, fortune tellers, midwives, traditional healers, traditional dancers or musicians, dreamers, elders, plant lovers, kind people, or anyone you know in the SWANA region who you think would be interested in my project or might be a good friend or ally to me along the way, or wants to adopt me as a grandkid :). Especially if you know folks in: Jordan, Egypt, Oman, Iran, Armenia, Palestine, or Lebanon. THANK YOU!* Transfer any abundance of frequent flier miles to me.* Follow and share my work often while I am away and as I share my offerings and work on raising funds this season! Staying tuned while I'm away is going to be so important for me especially as I am sure I will have things to share with you all from my journey, and also will continue needing your support to fulfill it.

*SWANA means South West Asia and North Africa, a less colonial way to refer to the region usually called the Middle East and North Africa.

ALSO, **please SHARE this work if it moves you**. Tell us in your sharing post: why is the work of ancestral reclamation or plantcestral medicine important to you? Why invest in #intergenerationalhealing and #traditionalwisdoms of our earth-based ancestors? How has this work touched or inspired you? Or any other personal testimonials you may have to offer.

DON'T WANNA PARTICIPATE IN THESE OFFERINGS BUT WOULD LIKE TO CONTRIBUTE ANYWAYS? No problem. Donations can be made here. (But you might as well participate in one of the lovely offerings above! Consider it my thank you :) ):

These offerings come from my heart and are offered with a lot of love to share a bit of my magical SWANA world with you and welcome you along my journey of making this trip possible, and experiencing just a little personal piece of why it is so special and close to my heart. I hope to continue making such offerings from the SWANA region if the circumstances permit me to do so! Please share this work, accept my offerings, and contribute as much as your abundant heart feels compelled and able to support me in acquiring the funds needed for me to fulfill this profoundly important spiritual calling for myself and by extension, my family and community. Please invest in the survival and flourishment of the life-giving and sacred traditions of the SWANA region in an era of time and context where it is being so fiercely suppressed and attacked, and has been for generations now largely neglected and hidden. Please support me in playing my humble role in this process of ancestral reclamation, healing, and re-membrance in a sacred way that I hope will contribute to our collective liberation and justice as original people of this beautiful earth we are all co-habitating. Please support me in preserving and uplifting the traditions of life-affirming SWANA ways and the sacred origins that we all in fact come from. We are people made of resilience, love, and soul, and these traditions are at the very pulse of what has sustained us despite all circumstances even as they have laid underground for so many of us. Please support me in uplifting this beautiful truth and strengthening/resurrecting these ancient medicine ways that have great power to bless the lives, lands, and spirits of my SWANA kindred in the homeland and diaspora and beyond, inshallah towards ever-multiplying expressions of life, culture, and day-to-day realities based in self-determination and LOVE for not just us, but all the life-affirming people of this planet. Please support me to fulfill my sacred purpose. THANK YOU! Your support means the world to me.